Thursday, November 01, 2012

China's Second Stealth Fighter Takes to the Skies

China has flown its second stealth fighter, the J-31, the smaller cousin to its previous model, the J-20. A look at either of them reveals the classic, Lockheed-Martin, F-22 Raptor pedigree.

Unlike the F-35 limited range, modest payload, marginally maneuverable light attack bomber, the Chinese 20's and 31's appear to be actual fighter aircraft. Stealth fighter aircraft, the sort that seem designed to give the F-35 fits. The F-35, of course, is designed to be able to defeat conventional, "4th-generation" fighters, not stealth fighters. Oopsie!

There are plenty of reports that China hacked Lockheed's computers, its partners' computers and the Pentagon's computers, and stole millions of lines of computer code and design data but, who knows, the spitting image similarity could just be a coincidence.

4 comments:

I hear that, PLG. In fact there's open speculation that the very adversaries the F-35 is intended to confront want it to succeed because it will exhaust Western military budgets and they're confident they can cost-effectively neutralize the warplane's stealth and electronic prowess. This line of thinking holds that they want us lashed firmly to a bloated dog.

The F-35 is intended to confront an adversary with a sophisticated air defence network. It is a light, strike bomber designed to take down an adversary's air defences and, if need be, deliver WMDs (tactical nukes) into enemy territory. It's stealth is frontal-aspect limited meaning it is intended to fly a straight line course to a target and fly the very fastest route out again.

Now when you put that bill of fare together you come up with a short list of potential adversaries for the F-35, essentially China. That, of course, is behind America's military "pivot" from the Middle East to Asia and Harper/MacKay are wetting their pants to get in on that action.

China is reacting, quite predictably, to finding itself in Western crosshairs. It has pilfered a good deal of America's stealth technology and seems to have an even more successful stealth programme of its own underway.

The F-35 is purposefully designed to be inferior to America's stealth fighter, the F-22. If the Chinese manage to replicate the F-22s qualities and capabilities, it means the F-35 truly is dead meat.

And if it seems bewildering that Harper wants to sell as much bitumen to China as possible, some of which may be used to fuel China's stealth fighters that could be used to destroy Canadian stealth light bombers, welcome to reality-free Conservatism.